With the improvement of living standards, food processors are more and more popular with consumers. Noodle makers, as one kind of them, are also more and more favored by consumers.
Conventional noodle makers generally include a horizontal noodle maker and a vertical noodle maker, and they both include a base, a stirring assembly and an extrusion assembly. The stirring assembly includes a stirring container and a stirring rod. The extrusion assembly includes a spiral rod, an extrusion cylinder, and an extrusion die.
A horizontal noodle maker is disclosed in Patent No. CN103518792A. Since a stirring rod and a spiral rod are rotated coaxially and the radius of rotation of the stirring rod is greater than the radius of rotation of the spiral rod, the stirring rod rotates forwardly to mix and stir flour and water into dough pieces or doughs in a case that a dough kneading process is performed; in a case that a dough extruding process is performed, the stirring rod rotates reversely, meanwhile the mixed dough pieces or doughs are scraped off by a front end of the stirring blade, and are finally fall into an extrusion cylinder via a feeding inlet located above the extrusion cylinder, and are then extruded out by the spiral rod. However, a problem is presented in this method, at an earlier stage of the dough extruding process, since there are many dough pieces or doughs, it is easy for the stirring blade to scrape and bring the dough pieces or doughs into the extrusion cylinder, however, at a later stage of the dough extruding process, the dough pieces or doughs become less, and cannot be scraped off by the stirring blade, or, the dough pieces or doughs may still fall into the stirring container again just after being scraped to the feeding inlet, causing part of dough pieces or doughs being remained in the stirring container.
Further, a vertical noodle maker is disclosed in Patent No. CN202476367U. Since a stirring rod and a spiral rod are not rotated coaxially, and an extrusion cylinder is located below the stirring container, the problem of dough remaining is well addressed. However, the conventional vertical noodle makers still have some issues. When a dough kneading process is performed, the stirring rod mixes and stirs flour and water into dough pieces or doughs; and when a dough extruding process is performed, it is difficult for the dough pieces or doughs to enter the extrusion cylinder via the feeding inlet since the dough pieces or doughs mixed have large sizes, thus decreasing the dough extruding efficiency, and further decreasing the processing efficiency.